107: Instagram Face/Off

Call hi, guys. It's nice to, you know, talk to someone after a long day a loan. It's nice to everybody figure out complicated audio setups so we can all connect to each other as humans at home. This is how God intended it to bes Master. Now I figured out all the well we were all last night connecting with our friend Fiona Apple, whose new album Fetch the Bolt Cutters. I fetched the bolt Cutters, Um, Emily, Giah

and I all Fetch the bolt Cutters. Oh yeah, we just wanted to give our our un baked takes on the album. I had been like I just filed a thing that I was like kind of Deep Reporting all day and I had like had my head in it. But of course I've been listening to Fiona the whole time. And then I went for like a walk the length of the album and listened to the whole thing through,

and I mean, I'm still very overwhelmed by it. But one thing, I just felt so grateful for an album that like it requires and demands your complete attention, you know, and like the more attention you give it, the more it gives you. It's it's just like I wish that I wish that there were like I wish that I could be riding the subway and listening to it like it was gonna be driving and listen to it. It's like I just hadn't heard an album like that in

a real a long time. Yeah, I basically I was thinking about maybe taking a drive out to the beach, not getting out, but just driving and coming back because that's allowed. This is uh, this is like an honor that I really only give to like Lana del Ray albums at this point, as far as like having a dedicated listen, so I was thinking it might warrant that.

But yeah, and it's also just like she it's it's really refreshing to hear a new album that really doesn't sound I mean, it doesn't really sound like it's in conversation with anything else right now musically or genre wise. It's like its own thing, and it's just like, oh yeah, I'm listening to like a completely fully formed artist who just knows what the funk she's doing. It's great. Um, I feel like she's an old friend at this point. Yeah.

One of my group texts was saying, like, we're so lucky that we had her when we were like thirteen, and also when we were five, and also now you know, like I feel. I went down a total spiral about the Spin Girl issue which came out in UM, which had Fiona on the cover, which I bought at the small the West Side Pavilion. That was just a knockdown r I Pu Side pavilion FASTI mall to be turned

into a Google campus. One thing I've been thinking about with Fiona recently is that for whatever reason, the way that she's released albums because she doesn't very frequently. This has been like eight years since I had Their Wheel and seven years. It was seven years between Extraordinary Machine and i'd Their Wheel and for whatever, like whenever her new album comes out. I am. I guess I'm the age that she was when I guess it's just our

age difference. I don't know how math works. I'm revealing this right now, but but I am the age that she was whenever she released the last album. So then I'm like going and doing my whole Fiona re listen and like getting excited and everything. And then I'm like, oh, now I get it in a whole new life, like passing all these sort of like emotional maturity milestones or something. Uh yeah, So it was it was weird just to like remember the girl issue because it just had a

big impact on me. I think it was also the first time I was like, why would you need a girl issue? Why can't it just be an issue? So I am saving my listening party. I had a really I had a crazy night last night. Um that was

not super like it was. It was crazy just in terms of like very pandemic e I guess, like my husband was doing something, recording something, there were technical issues, my kids were having all of these like meltdowns, and then I was like nervous that the emotional impact of listening to this album would be not what I required, so instead of a fance. Yeah, but so tell me how, like where were you when you started listening to it

and where were you after? Just so I can prepare at home and at home right like emotionally, you know, what did it do to you? I'm nervous. It's like interesting because it is like we've all been making fun of the celebrities for putting out entertainment and being like ha, like captive audience, like people are just going to have

time to consume things. But then when something that's actually thoughtful comes out and you're like, wow, I have nothing but time to do like a headphone listen in the middle of the night right now, and this is like the perfect thing for that. Is it gonna make me super depressed? Though? I don't think so. I don't think it's I don't think it's depressing. It is like I would say, like alarming is the word that I already used, but like in a good way. Here's what it is.

It's like for jazz moms, which we all are you like speak it's like an experimental jazz album. You know, it sounds and it sounds like like hot Knife was my favorite song on the last album. So much of it is like that. It's like depressive and really like

everything circling. I was walking in the woods and I just felt like very enveloped and clarified, kind of like I was like kind of it was that like sober, trippy feeling where everything, like the edges of everything got really bright and I felt very physically present in a way that I hadn't for a month. You know. It's yeah, I recommend, Yeah, you were right to save it. Okay, So now I'm really excited. I mean, I knew I

was gonna do it. It's I think it's just one of those things where like often it comes up just the difference in having kids versus not right now, and how it made like just how you kind of consume media when you have like two hours and that's all you have in the day. So I just didn't want it to be the thing that pushed me over. But now I'm like, no, it's exactly what I need. Yeah, it's great. I can't wait to listen to it again. I need another Like, actually, you know what, this is

why I'm so grateful for it. It's like it's the kind of album that made you know right now it's kind of and I'm sure it's different when you have kids, but it's like, I haven't felt great full to be alone in a while, and to be alone with the album made me feel really glad to be alone and and to like have that space in my head. And I mean, that's like the least of the reasons the

album is great, But that was a feeling I had. Yeah, I saw somebody saying on Twitter that, like, I feel like we're going to associate this album of course with the Quarantine, and but like in a good way, like this was like a bright spot in it or like something some kind of balm I guess in the middle of all of it, which it feels like that's that's

what it is. It's also nice to know that, you know, like every woman from the age of you know whatever to whatever is listening to the same album today, you know what I mean totally. I think I just like, because she was always just a little bit older than us, I had forgotten how young she was. So I was like, looking at the Spin cover, I was like, oh, it is like Billie Eilish, like exactly, it's like a sad teenage girl making music, but like the way that gets

marketed is very weird. But it also made me be like, oh, billy II, like she's gonna be fine. Then, well, Fiona has one thing going for her and that she is a genius, so that's helpful. Yeah, but she's also like it seems like she is like very you know, eccentric and oh yeah, and like you know, uncommercial in a lot of ways. But again, that's like the fun thing about listening to something by somebody who's just really doing

their own thing right now. Like she's like both physically kind of put herself in her own little universe and then the sound is kind of there too, so it just feels very refreshing. Yeah, I really liked them dust Bound profile. Oh that was great. Yea. I think that also got everybody hyped for the album. And friend of the podcast, Rachel Handler has basically been like the Fiona

Whisper for like the past year. Yeah, she's just been like constantly like face timing with her and stuff, which I'm very jealous of, but she's been doing it awesome, Like all the stuff that she's written, I would love it. Um. Well, we also wanted to talk a little bit about some other coronavirus activities weird nightmares. The biggest coronavirus activity is sleeping. I had a really scary nightmare. I I usually don't have nightmares. Um. We talked about this a lot on

the podcast. I think, uh, some of us don't have nightmares from smoking a lot of weed, and uh, I may or may not be one of those people. But UM, I had a really intense nightmare the other night and then realize realized that I had seen a lot of people mentioning that they also were having horrible nightmares. Not super surprising, but G you mentioned you've been having crazy dreams too, write Yeah, Well for me, um, I think

like something I feel like my brain. You know, if we supposedly we dream every night, right, and we just don't remember it, and we go through like seasons where we don't remember it. I think that like The Times did a piece on this, kind of trying to explain like why we're all like why am I having these crazy dreams? And to me, my own explanation is like

my brain is like where are all the people? And so it puts all the people in my head at night because it's not used to like my brains, like you need to have more people in your line of sight or something. And for me, it's been weird because I'm pregnant right now, and it was weird things and I, UM, and I've been like for the first two weeks, I was having really intense dreams every night, so much so that I would wake up and sometimes even write them down,

which I almost never do. Um. But they had nothing to do with coronavirus or pregnancy. And then very were worried that your husband had sold has sold at the devil for I wish you would honestly please Also, I'm never marrying that man place. But um, but then both things started to come into my dreams, you know, like both both things are now in them, and all of my friends are in them, you know which is I think why? I think my brain is like, where are

these people? Like? You need? They like they need to be in your sight? And I had a dream last night that I couldn't like, I woke up and I

couldn't remember it. But I've been having You do you ever wake up after a dream and you have such an intense aftershock of feeling and you spend all day and you're like I feel like someone is really angry at me, or that I'm really angry at something, or that I just figured out something incredibly important, or that I'm terrified and I don't know why and you've forgotten

what actually happened. But you know, like in your dream the time lasted like three weeks, and you're right, you know, I've been having lots of those have Yeah, those are the like clingy emotional film where you're like, I don't

remember what it was, but I'm like coated in the Yeah. Yeah, we'll say like, because I've been sleeping so much, I've just been oversleeping in the morning period when I'm just like sleeping ambiently to avoid waking up, that's when I half weird anxiety dreams for half sleep trying to get out of bed type stuff. Yeah, that's the worst. I hate that. I mean, I will say, like, I'm very I've had a lot of other shitty things happened to me during this quarantine, but my dreams have been great.

Just like parties. I feel like I've mostly been at parties. That's right, that's so sick, But yeah, I did. I had to. I had to be let off the hook. Somewhere. My college ex boyfriend, like so many college ex boyfriends, was really obsessed with like lucid dreaming, you know, cognitive whatever there, and and he would try to you know, he'd right left and right on his hands and he would stare at them before he like did all the techniques or whatever. And I was like, that's I was like,

you're being ridiculous. This is so so dorky. But now I'm like, I would fucking love to be able to lose a dreams I could, yeah, yeah, exactly. I was talking with somebody about this, like because we were talking about how we both like tried to lose a dream at different points in our life. But it's so like, the last thing I want to do when I wake up in the morning is like write a journal or like write a report of my dream that sounds like

work immediately in the morning. It's like a performance review too. You're like, how did I do? So? Like I've always sort of not been able to get into it because of that. But then I was thinking, like I probably still like I don't think I would be able to because I even just tried to keep a journal during this, which is like something I'm pretty bad at in general,

and I can't do it, so I don't know. It might not be my time keeping a podcast, like I also keep a journal of your dreams because they're good, like whatever you're doing is. A scientist in this National Geographic article about why people are having weird dreams said, some dream experts believe that withdrawal from our usual environments and daily stimuli has left dreamers with a dearth of inspiration, forcing our subconscious minds to draw more heavily on themes

from our past. Yeah, there was this guy that they like profiled in this National Geographic article and his he had had a dream that they described early where he drew on an obsession with comics and like the and the constant scroll of political posts on Twitter. So he was kind of just using what it was like, the the endless kind of flood of news information had like lodged itself into his subconscious so that was appearing in his dream, and like you know, lot points, which is

my that is a that is a nightmare. Dreaming about treating does sound like a nightmare. Yeah, I don't. I have y'all ever dreamed about Twitter? I have never. I don't think I everything. God, how boring. I think I've had nightmares where I made him like it was probably right after that the woman who was on the plane and then her life was ruined. I had an anxiety nightmare that that happened. I definitely had a did a mistake on Twitter? Did a mistake on Twitter? It's like

my number one panic. Yeah, because it always seems so passive. It's like it still is. It's always possible one of these days your number is up. And yes, you're turned to funk up on Twitter. Well, TuS, you were also posting about Sam Junipero the Black Mirror episode. Yeah, so, I because again I'm I feel so fragile. But that's also because I'm unlike a lot of people. And this

is for better or worse. I am literally never alone during self isolation, and it's like normally I carve out at least like an hour or something during the day where I can kind of just like think thoughts quietly,

but that doesn't exist anymore. Um So, I feel I felt like the only thing that was like safe to watch was just mindless garbage or something that I'd already seen and knew how it would make me feel, And so we turned on San Junipero and I was like, whoa it we are kind of in San Junipero because it's I mean, that's just the fantasy of like leaving the physical world, because you're going to leave anyway. It's we didn't want to leave the physical world, but here

we are kind of in a like fantasy space. Although it mostly sucks, I know, I totally I interpreted it in a slightly different way, which was like, oh, because like no one can have like really new experiences, you just can sort of sit on dwell on the past, every good experience from your past, and so but yeah, definitely been thinking like and also because there's no fomo

because it's like no one can do anything exactly. Yeah, beving like party like my friends are like literally it was like that, you know, post a picture of yourself when you were twenty. We were talking about how we all fall to this gap where like there are no pictures of us online when we were twenty, although maybe

on like friends are oh yeah. But then my friend Max Sylvestry like posted a picture of us together from a Halloween party in college, like a picture I've never seen, but I was like, wow, that was the best party in all of college right when heyya came out. It's like sence the beginning of our the big chill. Yeah. I mean there's also the feeling of like trying to evolve friendships or just kind of trying to keep up relationships in a completely virtual way. And in a way

like that too. When I was watching san Ju and Appero, it was like, Oh, it's this weird like virtual connection and you kind of just want like new to invite new people into it also, but it's just too weird and it just doesn't feel right. It's like this weird test on relationships that the you know, keeping things up virtually. But it's like, I don't think it's a test that

means in anything. I think that people are putting too much stakes on, Like, oh, if I don't keep up with somebody during this pandemic, that means that we weren't really friends. It's just like, no, we have like friends that we interface with in all sorts of different ways, and I have lots of friends that I'm not exactly like let's hop on zoom right now. But I think that people are really like, oh, like, so many friendships are going to be over after this, it's like, no,

that's that's not what friendship is. It's also like it's also like I I mean, I spent a whole year completely off the internet when I was in the Peace Corps, like not talking to anyone, barely had a cell phone, you know, middle of nowhere, halfway across the world, and my friendships, like it felt interminable obviously, like it's only been a month for us here, Like Peace Corps was like this basically but with no internet and um, and it felt like forever. And I felt like I had

missed out on so much. But then but friendship wise, it didn't matter. I just removed myself. And I mean, it's different when we're all in the same situation. But it's like I've been reading wolf Hall and I keep thinking like it's just a month, Like like our our whole lives are so short anyway, this is just a month of them like it it's our brains are making it feels endless and it will be kind of endless.

But yeah, when you think about how short it actually is, it's like, yeah, you don't need to keep up with people really. Yeah. I've been reading also about like the Cambrian era and stuff like that at the timeline of human experience. I do that all the time. It's like, yeah, speaking of the timeline of human experience. We wanted to talk to Gia a little bit about a subject. She is the expert on Instagram face. It is plastic surgery April here on night call. Never let anybody forget it's

plastic surgery April. This is very Wait, have y'all talked about what what do you what do you think it's going to happen to everyone's face? Like, do you think that all of them are getting That's how we kicked it off. We talked about some people clearly still have people on call, like Madonna and the Kardashians. I think

it's like a personal chef, like they're just yeah. But a lot of the B level influencers, Yeah, if you didn't already have your person on call before this all started, like you didn't have a lot of time to get that. Influences are unemployed to guys, they're um, can you tell our listeners a little bit about Instagram face and what

got you into it? Yeah? So Instagram face just seemed to me to be one of those things that, you know, any woman between the ages of I don't know, twenty and thirty five, who was on Instagram was aware of and talking about but just hadn't been like written about in a really head on way, or I guess it had.

But I was like, Okay, so there's this thing where every influencer you know looks like a combination of every professionally beautiful woman looks like a combination of Emily Radikowski, Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Kendall Jenner, who looks the same as Emily Radikowski. And I was like, they're like, you know, like the my Marxist instincts were like, okay, what is the material reason for this? Like who what? What are the material conditions for this production of Instagram face?

You know, and um, and so some of my friends, who are better Instagram observers than me, we're like, okay, it's you know, it's this doctor, this doctor, and this doctor. I started following them on Instagram, and you know, watching their sort of before and after time lapse videos where you would see people get their Instagram face in real time.

You know, everyone's face just started to look like what one of my friends called a sexy baby Tiger, and it was just like, you know, I had already been thinking like there's something about being alive today that I've always been like, I'm a little suspicious of how it sort of seems like social media systems are shaping identity into whatever increases engagement, you know, like they're they're they're

sort of shaping thoughts and identity. They're incentivizing that, right, And and it seemed to me to be really interesting that the same thing was happening literally with your face.

That your face, because all of these new technologies were available to tweak and alter your face, both digitally through face tune and physically through fillers, that you could just go back and forth forever, you know, the sort of endless arms race of incremental improvement, until you looked unrecognizable and you looked like the same sort of cyborg that every professional person, professionally beautiful person on Instagram looked like.

And um, and so yeah, I just I went to Kim's plastic surgeon, Simon Orion, uh and you know, anonymously as a patient for a consultation, and you know, he like it was terrified, like I felt like if I yeah, well he and he like told you how like what specifically you would need to do to your face to get that yes? And you know, like I just walked in and I was like, I'd like to be prettier.

What would you suggest? And he did tell me, like he told me what it would take, like he I genuinely felt like, I mean, he he he's clearly an amazing doctor. And he was, you know, responding ruthfully to this thing that I had said. But then the thing that depressed me was that I went to a couple of other doctors and said the same thing, and within like thirty seconds they looked at my face and they were like, yep, cheek filler, chin filler, you know, like

do suck the fat out of your lower face? Like and then you And I was like fuck yeah, Like the whole thing made me think, you know, about like this, like I always think about the line between like seeing your body and life as a source of potential is both like amazing and deeply punishing, you know. And and I was like, oh, I'll try to be really sort of mercenary and pragmatic about this, like I you know, I think I'm cute. I don't care, like I'll just

be I'll just like ha ha, immersion journalism. See what they say. And then I left Beverly Hills and I was like, motherfucker, Like I can't look at my own face anymore. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta read Helter Skelter, the manga by Kyoko Okazaki that we just talked about. I will. Uh, somebody may have just found a pdf off it online. Oh really, Oh great, somebody it was my dad. We're

gonna take a quick break, welcome back. Maybe now it's a good time, actually to take a night call to talk about the rubicon of how this began, how we got here. Let's do it. Let's take this night call. Hey guys, this is Brooke a long time, long time really enjoying classic surgery months. Um, I've been rewatching the hill famously got ten surgeries done in one day, um, and now regrets it and has a lot of pain.

But I think she is one of those people. I think she kind of marks this like demarcation between numerous surgical enhancements and sort of the objections, because when you think about people that have like really changed the way they look, kind of sense Heidi Montag, like someone like Bella Hadid. She's done it so piecemeal, and a lot of the things that she's done is more injection based

as opposed to surgery. UM and Heidi, I mean, I think in a desperate attempt to be the star of the season, like did this like huge dramatic kind of like the fox that or Foxes like the Swan, like full body rehab thing. Um, and she was like pilloried for it, and ultimately like they left the show and we're kind of living in Danna Barbara and ob security like after the Hills until the new season. So anyway, I just think she's like a really interesting person in

this story and UM loving living this month. All right, guys, by great question from our friend Bruck Baker, who um really really smart to bring up Heidi mont Tak. Yeah. I think what happened is that this happened in two waves in the two thousands, and first there was the wave of people in their twenties and younger getting plastic surgery for things that were traditionally reserved for older women trying to look young. And then they became about like

younger women trying to look like trans human. So at first it was kind of you know, like a like freakish I want to say it was like treated as a novelty and sort of you know something still that like very over the top people only were doing, and

then it became normalized via Kylie Jenner. Then there was like a second wave with Kylie Jenner of like, Okay, everyone's gonna do this, maybe we're gonna acknowledge it, or maybe we're just gonna say we're overlining our lips with lip liner, And like Deny, a lot of people would be like, puberty is what made my lips get big? Suddenly. It's interesting to me that people are still thinking about Heidi Montag. Montag was a blip for me. I mean it was it just seemed sad and then I moved on.

But I was never that immersed in the hills. But I guess she was twenty three um and she I do remember her kind of like appearing on um, you know, the covers of magazines and stuff about ten years ago, talking about I think she had ten. So we're gonna start the list because it's like really like it's the first time I've ever heard of like a back scoop

um um. It's like a thing. It's like I guess it's like kind of like, I guess a Brazilian without the um without the taking the fat and then putting it in your butt, like it's just you take you basically like I don't know, it's just like taking some of your back fat out so that you're like Coop but looks more pronounced or something. Um I need to find Okay she got, Okay, here's the list. This was a This is a spread in um People magazine at the time. Also, wait, didn't she have like a bunch

in one day? It was all at once, It was all the way. So it was minni brow lift, boat talks in her forehead and frown area, nose job revision because she had already had a nose job, fat injections, and her cheeks, nasal labial folds and lips, chin reduction, neck lipos section, ears, pinned back, breast augmentation revision, LiPo section on her waist, hips in her and outer thighs, and a butt augmentation all at once. That's so dangerous. Yeah,

and I she did have a lot of complications with it. Yeah. Really she said that her heart stopped and they had to Yeah, yeah, I mean that. See. I think of that episode which I wrote the episode where she unveils her face and like she she goes home to her parents and like Colorado or whatever, and um, and like her mom sees her daughter like completely remade for the first time, and it's like it's truly one of these

moments in that show. And there are many in that show where it's just like, Okay, I am watching a work of high art, like this is like I've never seen this happen before in any medium. Um. What was the reaction was her mom was really upset, but she was trying to make yeah, and she was trying to be nice about it. She was just like, well, if this is what makes you happy, but she was like crying and stuff, and it was just like it was

really rough. Her mom's kind of normal. Her mom is not like a momager at all or even like an Orange County like housewife. I'm very like rich like Boulder types, rich religious people. It's funny, Like I think that the Heidi montage saying like, I also don't think of her very much at all or at all, but I think

that it's funny she is. She was that sort of early precursor to both this idea that you know, it makes obvious practical sense in a too, in a very sort of unabashed open way, just modify your body according to whatever will make it more money, you know, And it also makes complete sense, you know, as an ordinary person to you know, use your own body and personality as a vehicle towards um like economic success, like like like she's so so ordinary that that the fact that

she did both of those things, she was already like the bitch on a successful soap opera, you know, like she or she became the bitch when she did the plastic surgery because actually the thing about it that was concerning I think was also that it was like maybe Spencer's idea that was that was why I was always so repelled and maybe why I never let myself become interested in what was going on with her was that it just seemed like such a gross, toxic relationship and

it didn't seem like I couldn't get interested in it if the dynamic was that it was just like two awful people and one of her was forcing the other tastic to turn in the shows her rent like when she gets with Spencer, her friends are like, we don't like this guy. We think he's bad for you. And then she's just like in it so deep immediately that there's nothing they can do, and then they are together forever and uh still together now. But she came out later and said she regretted it. She had a lot

of them undone. She said it was like a terrible idea. Um, but I think, yeah, Heidi Kim Kardashian obviously. I mean the thing about Heidi that I feel like is kind of pretty different from the kind of work that a lot of people her age at that time are getting now is that I don't know what she's emulating other than like Barbie or like you know, Anna Anderson or something in Courtney Stotton and people that's like a very

specific type of person. Not gonna say it's l a specific although obviously, you know, like the good version is Angeline, Like she this idea of you know, or Marilyn Monroe, just the idea of like, yeah, use what you have augmented a little bit and then make yourself like a vehicle for selling glamour on your own term. In a way, that's why it doesn't seem as insidious to me, because it's like this came out of somebody's like imagination and

had very little to do with peer pressure. I wanted to throw it to Gia about that because when you look at the pictures of Heidi Montag it's there's a kind of dated nous just in terms of comparing it to Instagram phase and Gia like, when you started noticing this kind of homogeney in in the look, like the aesthetic? Have you been able to unsee it? Is part one and part two like are you starting to notice a shift?

Are you noticing like an evolution of that look? Yeah, I mean I think it will continue to shift because the thing about Instagram face that's so uncanny is it it's so gradual. It's like the celeb face things where you can't where Sometimes even if you see a picture being photoshop before your eyes, you can't tell which is the fur and which is the after. Sometimes you can't even see the change. You just know that their face

looks different. And I think in the difference like the real evolution from Heidi Montage two or whatever to this sort of thing is that you know that was all at once, everything in a day with the Gardashians, right, It's it's over the course of four or five years, and even their doctor said to me, like talking about them specifically, like he was like, you know, my most famous clients, you will not be able to tell the difference between you know, before and after a visit or

even month to month. It's just over years that you can tell a difference. And and so it's built in that it always it's a it's a like it makes it more insidious in terms of with the Courtney Staddon Heidi Montage thing, it's like, right, you have this one idea and it's Marilyn Monroe, right, it's bombshell pin up like Jessica Rabbit, hyperd Blade whatever. With these things, it's

this continually shifting cyborg. Right. It's like the the ideal itself is being collectively create did and then continually altered in real time, both by face tune and by fillers and botox, and both of those things just keep building against each other. And I think the ideal will shift based on a sort of almost collective voting right way of um Instagram likes and sponsorships like whatever, wait, whatever face performs the best, that's what. And I think it

will kind of shift a little bits. But I think I mean The thing that really got about another difference between the Montag look and the whatever we're seeing now is that one of the things I find most um disturbing about today's beauty ideal, like the Glossier whatever vibe, is that it's it's a sort of performative natural nous, right like bear skin you know, yeah, bear skin you know, eating Like, yeah, you just pump all of this, like you pump all of these chemicals and all of this

money in to your sort of diet and wellness and skincer so that you can give off this like very faux natural aesthetic. And I think like the way in which you know this it's it's it's deliberately it's both like deliberately on canny and also supposed to be this very sort of clean, you know, probably healthy like interesting thing too, it's like like you know, eating clean and

also putting botulism in your face. Yeah, and and those things are and and both of them kind of dovetail under this like you know bullshit like girl bless idea that you know, whatever you do to live your best life is good and both of those things qualified or anything a woman does this feminism, yeah, especially anything that makes her money right, or like makes you happy or makes your perform better on Instagram right, And that the hiding Montague thing is like a jackhammer to a piece

of marble, and this is more like you can tell yourself. It's like, no, you're chiseling away. The doctors presented like going to the gym, I'm and that's what they you know, like because I asked them about Instagram face, you know, and I interviewed one of them like as myself and not as an undercover patient and um, and he was like, listen, you know we it's no longer sort of a shameful thing to you know, want to be happy in your body. And I was like, you know, my eyes are despiraling,

because I was just like deeply in despair. And then because like Kylie came out about it eventually, she was like, I've had some stuff done. The Kardashians are all still really squorely on like what specifically they've had done, even though the human eye can tell, you know, from looking

at them. But yeah, I think what you were saying about it being an arms race especially, so it's like any time a new procedure is invented, and it's like any tech thing where they're like constantly like on the bleeding edge, trying to come up with new things to sell people. So it's like I personally will learn about something that I didn't know people did to their faces, and then I won't be able to stop seeing it.

There's so many new things out lift which people say allegedly Ariana Grande has had that makes her look very entirely and everybody um. And the other one is the the eye threading thing where people because also Bella Hadid was like photoshopping her eyes into a cat I before she did that, they would point it out on selub face that she was like photoshopping her eyes like up a little bit um and it looks like when actresses do that. It's called like the Hollywood facelift where you

just like pin your face back tape. That's what it looks like, which doesn't remind me of Brazil. It's the subtle Brazil. Is this like a thread lift on your eyes? Is that what it is? Yeah, it's a lift on your eyes, and Bella Hadid did it. But like now again, like now that I have seen it, I can't stop seeing it. Yeah, there's a thing called one of my friends, Um who used to work in beautypr and like fully

does Instagram face to herself. She always like, we always send her pictures of like, you know, like Jared Kushner looks super whack these days, like you know, mobile text pictures of like Jared Kushner or Joe Biden or you know this new adel face and you know, like be like tell us what, tell us what they got. And she was and she was telling me about this thing called boogle fat removal. You all know about that. We

talked about it. Yeah it's so And I looked at and I was like, oh, yeah, it's but she said she ate a lot of japanesewee potatoes in her face change. I remember that we were talking about too, because we were saying, like, because we all wrapped for like the Round Face Crew, It's oh yeah, it's like having that done makes you look it doesn't. It like doesn't make you look more youthful. It makes you look like more high fashion in this way that it's like more of

a smoker, like you look like an as twin. It also makes you look sad because it kind of unless you do something to fix the fact that it drags your face down a little, like it drags the corners of your mouth down unless you have something to pat it and keep it up. Um. After we wrapped last week, I was like, now I'm going to be thinking about

removal for the rest of my life. It's also like it targets insecure people obviously, but like I've known people who aren't, like the most insecure person who, like you said, Jia, it's like you go in and then they just like look at your face and they're like, m you know what you should do? And like, even if you are a person who is comfortable with your face at this point, it's like just having someone be like, you know what

would make your face look better and suggesting it. Yeah, And it's really crazy, like especially if with UM clinics that serve Asian people too, there's a lot of stuff that's assumed that you want because everybody wants it if they're Asian, and the Boogle fat remover is one of those things because you know, Asian people tend to have full their faces, not necessarily always, but a lot you know, uh eyelid stuff, um, you know naso labial stuff that

all ends up like that, that stuff that's just like, well you could you know, that's just like assumed that in the battery of things you might be going in for that you would want that if you're Asian, which is just you know, a whole other layer of it to me thinking about these procedures, because I mean there was of course, like after there was a part of me that was like, well, if if my looks were directly connected to my livelihood, i'd probably get this ship.

Like after talking to them, they were like, oh, it's a couple of thousand dollars like last for a year, you know, I would like, I'm like, maybe I would put that on a credit card. I was really thinking about that. Gia had to leave. She had a little bit of a technical difficulty. So we're sorry for the abrupt ending. But you can find her book Trick Mirror and all of her other writing on her website gia dot blog, and you can find out where to purchase

her book and all sorts of other good stuff. So we are so glad that she came by this week. This was great. Um, we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, it's time to take our faces off. Welcome back tonight. Call a podcast for Taking Your Face Off. It's plastic surgery, April. What better plastic surgery classic to dive into than John Wu's Face Off, the movie where two people get facial facial taken off surgery,

they got face swapped two people. Feels like it's under selling it when the people that you're speaking of our John Travolta and Nick Cage, like, I feel like they're they're like demigods, They're like on another level. And is it true you had not seen seen Face Off before? How did you miss it? Um? I don't know. I

I don't know. I mean, it's just when these I feel like, this is a movie you see you with a bunch of friends in college and like a somewhat rambunctious setting where there might be some substances UH enjoyed or something. I never sure I saw it with my parents. Okay, well, I don't know. This feels to me, like I this feels to me like the kind of movie that I now know, like the kinds of jokes a lot of my like high school and college like guy friends would make a lot and it's all kind of based out

of this. But it was sort of weird to see the Rosetta Stone. Finally, I mean this movie is is justified, like the hype around it is justified because it is um super crazy, um fucking rules. Yeah. I love John Woo and I love the John Woo Hollywood movies. I was thinking about it because I watched Birds of Prey recently. Yeah, I was like, it's like the best action movie, best like superhero movie definitely, but also the best like action

sequence is I've seen a long time. And then I read it was because they were doing a lot of Hong Kong style fight choreography. Um, and Face Off also just sort of was one of the first movies. I feel like that brought that kind of fight choreography into American brains, American brains that didn't watch martial arts movies already and Chinese action movies. Um. But you know it's, um, it's a perfect movie. It's basically like Death Becomes Her

but with men. It's also though it's like it is I think Molly you may have said, it's like it's operatic. It is the most heightened emotional movie. I've never seen anything that jumps off from the point of like that elevated kind of like hysteria and only goes up from there.

I mean, the whole movie feels like a trailer, which I feel like the John Mouse style where everything is just high, like everything is punctuated with like seven exclamation points, which is yeah, but it's also I think I think it's partially due to the fact that if you're an actor, especially if you're an actor like Nick Cage or John Travolta, You've got to show up to that movie being so excited to get to do this, like it's a dream or yeah, why don't we explain the setup in case you,

like Emily, haven't seen Face Off and to believe that anyone else hasn't seen Face Off. My Face Off story is that I saw a face Off with some other friends parents. This is another story like Death Becomes Her, where somebody else's parents took me to see a movie my parents would have probably thought was too scary for me, even though I was in the seventh grade. They would have just thought it was like super violent. So I saw it. I loved it, like I did anytime I

got to see an R rated movie. And then I came home and I was like, Mom, Dad, we have to see this movie Face Off and just saw it. I want to see it again. You got to see it with me, and we went to see it the next day. Um, and my parents after we came out of it, were like, that was so violent. Why did we let you see this? And I was like, no, I told you we were trying to see it. Maybe you shouldn't have let your parents see it. They obviously

couldn't handle it. Definitely, just like one of those moments where I was like, I am differentiating myself in taste from my parents being into like, you know, just violent. So the plot if you have kids kids, So John Travolta plays um Shawn Archer. He's an FBI agent who is has been basically like destroyed, you know, by the fact that his son was killed by a terrorist, Nick Cage. I'm trying to remember Shawn Archer. No wait, so the and the deal Like Also, it's like he has a

brother who's like Pollocks Troy. There's so many things in this but any really high our movie. It has references to ancient Rome that's super high brow. So Travolta is trying to like, you know, find and catch Cage. And Nick Cage has recently planted a bomb where do you plant the bombs Angeles Convention Center? The convention Center, there's

so many good locations. Yeah, I've recently I've been seeing maybe because I've been watching all these nineties movies, I've been seeing the l a convention center in a ton of movies, and I've seen it filling as airports a lot, a lot of things. Also, they were talking about turning it into a shelter, yeah VENTI latter hospital, although that has not happened, which is stupid. Uh. Yeah, they should definitely could use it for a lot more things than

they do, but apparently they're too busy using it. They might still be using it for anime x XPO, which is still like the only con that hasn't been canceled, just somewhere it has then their avatar. Um So anyway, travilled just trying to catch Cage then to find this like biological weapon and also just like fuck him up because Nick Cage's character killed his son, and so they decide that like the bust, can someone else help me? I'm like trying to dig through it, and I'm like

talk about the fucking boat. No of course, um so he um tries too hard to describe. Wait, you're talking about which part? No, it's just to get like how do they get I forget, how do they get to getting their face? She wants to go undercover in the PRIs Nick cave because he the only person who's alive who would know how to defuse the bomb is his brother calls, and the only person he would talk to

would be his brother. So naturally, the only thing to do is for somebody to surgically take Nick Cage's face castor Troy's face and put it on their bodies so that they can pose as him. M. Yeah, and and and of course the person who has to do this is Sean whatever his face is Sean tv Um, so he undergoes the the surgery. I was shrieking at the at the screen because it's so like I don't even know anything about science, and I was like, this seems

really stupid. The order of operations doesn't matter. That's why that's I think, there's so much like every single scene in this movie contains like all of these like distracting crazy things and plot, and everyone's like screaming and crying like an upset and then like diabolical. It's so that's why it's so great. It's just like it's like a bunch of it's a genre mash, it's like a bunch of different genres. So uh, Sean Archer gets Castor Troy's face.

Castor Troy is theoretically knocked out, but then he comes to and demands that he'd be given which is just like face. It's sitting around and he doesn't have a face, but it makes sense. It's like even if even he's such a like horrible villain, but if you see someone with like no face and there's a face city right there to so you know, he says, I want to take his face off. At some point the highlight of

the movie, Um, they switch faces. What you need to know is that character Castor Troy is like a lecterous, insane person. Yes, and that Sean Archer. John Travolta's character is a family man, good man, and his daughter is Dominique Swain, who is a wayward teen and is so good. It's so good playing a wayward teen wearing some brown lipstick.

The makeup is so specific. There's a really good line where he's like, if you dress up like it's Halloween all the time, you're just gonna get tools trying to get in your pants, which is like, yes, yes, please. His wife is Pat Nixon. I believe I thought she was Joe and Allen, Joan Allen, who was acting in a different movie. She's in a Sundance movie. She played Pat Nixon in the Nixon movie, so I just always think of her as Pat Nixon. But yeah, it's also

like she's definitely in a different movie. She's supposed to be the hot wife, but she's like playing it very psychologically. Uh you know, she's playing it the same way that she played her character in the Ice Storm. Yeah, but in a way it's good because she's kind of like an audience stand in. She's just like so down in the normal emotional range that you're like, wow, this is really off the rails. Like Joan Allen's kind of looking

around like should I let my husband touch me? It seems like everyone's kind of crazy stranger in the house now. And his name is Sean Arch with the body with the soul of castor Troy the body and without without that tell tale scar. It's not very explained how their bodies are also switched, because they're definitely like different. They said the doctor. I think at one point is like, you guys have like pretty similar bodies, and it's like, no, they don't, but he does some like doesn't he do

some light work on their bodies? And then yeah there's the bullet enough, Yeah good enough, good enough to spend the disbelief everybody. So then of course Castor Troy is really Sean Archer goes undercover at the jail. It's like a super jail. It's called Boots arra one, which made me think because it was supposed to be like the prison that nobody knows where it is because it's nowhere backwards, and like, is this where they got the idea for

the grocery store from the prison from Face Off? Because if so, I love it that all of a sudden that just improved standing Free dates Face Off And it comes from a like a novel called Arajuan that's about an imaginary like Utopia. Oh boring. I wanted. I wanted the founders of Arijuana to be huge John Wu fans, but they are low Kia cult so so um. He goes to the super jail. He finds his brother, who's very weird. I such a crush on Alexandra Novola in

this movie. Wait, what really such a type for me, like weird, wiry, like I'm so not surprised by the nineties guy with like a blur haircut, and he's like, hello, brother, brother, brother, And then they escape from the jail um and go to a super sick party where Gina Gershawn is there. Yeah, she's and she's in the same movie as she's not in Joan Allen's movie. She's always knows, she always knows what movie she's in. She's very good at that. She just showed up on melrose Place and she knows what

show she's on there as well. God bless yes. Um, I forget what happens after that. So okay, Gina gershon was Castor Troy's girlfriend and they have a son. And that's like another weird thing that comes in where it's like, you know, Archer and Troy both had sons, but Nick Cage took John travolt does, And now John Travolta, what's he gonna do with the kids? Isn't the son played by the same actor too, like a kid actor John Travolta sons. So he's like sees so and he gets

all overwhelmed. I know that's crazy. I don't know, or maybe like that's just the Moppett kind of hairstyle at every child actor had in the nineties ninetie boy. Um. But yeah, oh and she's like also Gina Gershawn is also like the sister of his drug dealer. But like, are they like kiss on the mouth? Are they? Also? Is she having a thing with her brother too? There's

a lot of incest vibes in this movie. Yeah, well, yeah, of course there's one really uncomfortable scene everyone will recall immediately. Um where uh Sean Archer who's really castor Troy like kind of hits on his daughter. It's so gross. I mean, but that's but that's why I love this movie. Is like it just won't spare you. It's like, you're here, you want to see a movie or not? Yeah, yeah this is a movie. Yeah, you will be fucking entertained

by this movie. Um. I do know that face transfers really do exist, but they don't work like this at all. What's what's cool is that I am dB trivia for Face Off included the nugget that the first real life phase transplant was accomplished in on Richard nor Is, who had accidentally shot himself in the face with a shotgun the same year the movie came out The Bizarre. Do you think the movie made him be like, there's hope, Like what what do I have to lose? Just my face? Maybe? Yeah?

He do you think after he saw the movie he was like, I'll just wait until this technology is invented. I don't think so. No, but but phase transplants. I remember hearing about face transplants like a while ago and going on a deep dive of the face transplants and how it's like, I mean, it's it's that that's just like a very very sad, horrible thing. But also it makes you think, like that's what plastic surgery is, like that I can save lives. So there's things that like

plastic surgery is legitimately needed for. There's of course, like and especially yeah, that's amazing you can give somebody a new face. But it's really I mean, I don't know, I wonder how far they'll be able to come with that, because right now it's it's nowhere near face off technology. I'll say that I was freaking myself out last night doing some of the Instagram filters. Do you guys ever do that? No? I did for a while, and then I was just like, I don't know if this. I

think I'm too old for this. There's just all kinds of weird ones. Now you know that makes you look very like a York cover. Um, but a lot of them do you just sort of like change your face in a way that you were like, it makes you feel weird? But didn't you didn't you once postulate Molly that they were just trying to get you to like give enough angles and spend enough time under that case that they were like stealing your face. Face off. They're

definitely also stealing your face. But that's like what all social media is for, so why not have fun? This is some fun. I want to do it. Yeah, well some of it. I was doing something because Emily posted a really good vampire selfie. Yeah, accomplished just with makeup. But then I was like, oh, I bet there's some good vampire filters and I looked it up and they're really good vampire filters, but like they'll make your eyes red for example, Um, and some of them have fangs

where if you open your mouth there's fangs. You know, it is cool, but then like some of them were also just like really creepy, you know, um horror core, and I just kind of was like, I don't know, it's it's a fun disassociated experience experience. If you guys could have anyone else's face, if you had to do a face off and you could swop faces with somebody, who would you face swap with? Oh that's such a good question. I mean did they have to be alive

so that you can take their face? And did they take your face? Or it's just like hypothetically so we can three D print their face, Oh okay, and like grafted onto your face the way that they put like teeth on top of teeth for famous people. Honestly, I really liked all the faces and where the boys are. I was like, they've all got great faces. I might take one of their faces. Yeah, I don't know. It's

hard for me to. I can't really think of anybody or I would actually want their face, um, other than like any number of the like Instagram face girls that Gia was talking about with that or just be like kind of interesting to be a hot for a second, but you want that? Would you want like the era face or would you want you could go from any era? I don't know. Yeah, I mean I I literally have my choices. I mean, you know the one that I

would do. I would probably do the one that feels like the only celebrity uh comparison I've ever had, because then it wouldn't be that weird, I feel like. But but in speaking of York, I would like take a young York's face, which is like, you already look exactly already, so like that's the thing. I would just like want to look more like your Molly Who's face would you take? Oh? Really? Yeah? I wouldn't that be fun? I mean he's got such an interesting well oh for a day it was permanent. Well,

that's I would take. I would be like in Game of Thrones and take everyone's face on a different day, would be swapping them out, remember, and returned to Oz when she has all the different faces. That's one thing I think about, though, is like, because Instagram face is like one thing, and the whole thing about like beauty is that it's multifarious in some way, and you can't

be every type of hot. You know, even if you're a Betty, there's always going to be a Veronica, So I always think about, like, yeah, it's just like what when when when we get to the point where people can like swap out their face for like a variety

of slightly different faces. Well interesting you should say this because our night call listener, Evan wrote us an email and said, no magic movie science could explain how John traveled does giant face was going to fit on Nick Cage's regular sized head and vice versa, And then all of a sudden you have to think about, like how a face would fit on your head? H yeah, because you have like this movie takes for granted that people have different skeletons or like the people don't have the

same skeleton. Um, yeah, because it doesn't like your face. You wouldn't just be able to slap one face onto the other, like people's skulls are totally different. You'd really only be able to do it with your twin And then what would be the point unless one of you

got disfigured. And now I've turned this into not fun well a thing that what we were talking about, like the weird like making yourself feel weird by doing Instagram like the weird art Instagram fillers like or if filters rather like there are, Yeah, but like I feel like that's one of the fun things about about Face Off is like this sort of weird, not quite magic thing that happens with the face where it's like like Sean particularly like he's like wearing the face of the person

that he hates, and so every time he looks in the mirror, he's like, I want to kill you because like looks like the guy he hates most. Um, but I I just and and then it kind of like he kind of ends up inhabiting the character because he like that's the person that he sees in the mirror. I like that that stuff that much, Like it's like persona in some way. Total it's like, what does make you unique as a person? Like? Who are you? Actually?

If you change your face, do you become the person whose face you have, the way that people in horror stories, like Inherit the personality of the heart transplant. Yeah. Yeah, Well there's also the fact that they when they swap faces and face off, they start to adapt each other's patterns of speech, which I think is you're meant to just not really think about the fact that a larynx um like a box that changes your voice, wouldn't change the way you express yourself. But but I guess it

also makes you. It makes you wonder like, is it because your face has more to do with how you express yourself and communicate? Then you might assume is there some kind of like secret sauce there. I think it's because they're trying to passes each other, so they're like adopting each other's speech mannerism. No, no, they are, but then there are times when they're like kind of talking to each other or whatever where they wouldn't have to, but you know they do. I will say John Travolta

does a really good Nick Cage impression in this. Yes, that's like a very low key great for four people. It's it's a fucking incredible performance. These are like to such great performances. And yeah, that's the thing is like the face off, like the surgery is a mcguffin. You know, it just like doesn't matter at all. It just allows you to set up this thing that's a body swap comedy. Basically, Yeah, as a as a cool action thriller, we also really funny.

We also have a minor mystery um that a listener wrote in about listener Craig wrote, I seem to remember a face Off game for PC, but I can find no evidence of it. I think it was maybe web based or a demo disc. The only gameplay I recall was a level escaping the prison with the magnetic boots. Curious if this will ring a bell with any listeners. I have no recollection of this, um, but I didn't want to. But if anyone knows about a face Off CD rom, give us a nightcall at two four oh

four or six night. It's probably a good time to wrap up our little face Off chat. Any last thoughts on Face Off? Well, I'm glad I finally watched it. Um. It is like fits in right, like very well with all the stuff I've been watching during the quarantine. So shout out to pigeons flying away during gunfire. Shout out to peaches. I could eat a peach for Oh God, I hate to see you go, but I love to

watch as always. I love like a line about kind of lingus is the line that they test his new voice on, because that's the one he has to like say over and over and over again while they're calibrating his voice. It's a perfect movie. You guys. Well, we will be back next week with more plastic surgery April. Um. It feels like months are going on both for a very long time and going by very quickly, but we

are still in plastic surgery April. So if you have any thoughts on plastic surgery faces in general taking faces off, give us a call at to four oh four six night or you can email us at Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com. Also, if you're enjoying the pod, please don't forget to subscribe and review and all that stuff. Uh. We are on Facebook at Night Call Podcast, Instagram at Nightcall Podcast, Twitter at Nightcall Pod. Thank you so much

for listening and we will see you next week. And you can also subscribe to our Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall where we just put up another bonus episode on Helter Skelter by Yoko Kazaki, so check that out. Yeah, and thanks for I Guess this week, Gia Tolentino. If you've got any more questions about Instagram Face, we'd love to know them. But also it's why to May after that, so start preparing your two thousand based quarries and we'll see you soon. M